With Friends Like These...

Two stories of persecution of Christians by our Muslim "allies" from Voice of the Martyrs (via email, sorry no link available).

Pakistan:

On June 6, 2006, Nasir Ashraf, a Christian stone mason, was brutally attacked just outside Lahore. While working while working on the construction of a room at a school near Manga Mandi in Pakistan, Nasir became thirsty and took a break. He drew water and drank from a glass chained to a cemented public water tank next to a mosque which was reserved for "all" poor people. Returning to the construction site, a Muslim man asked him, "Why did you drink water from this glass since you are a Christian?" The man accused Nasir of polluting the glass. The Muslim man yanked the glass off the iron chain, broke it and threw it in a garbage can. The man summoned other militant Muslims to the scene, furiously saying, "This Christian polluted our glass." Hearing this, the incensed mob began beating Nasir, yelling that a Christian dog drank water from their glass. The militant Muslims encouraged bystanders to beat Nasir because it would be a "good" deed that would benefit them in heaven. The attackers pushed Nasir off a ledge onto the ground. The impact of the fall dislocated his shoulder and broke his collar bone in two places. Nasir was knocked unconscious and he did not regain his senses until he reached a clinic. A doctor told Nasir that some people had brought him there. The doctor advised Nasir to never make this kind of mistake again.

Note, for the record, that these were just average Muslim citizens, not necessarily terrorists.

Turkey:

Nationalists in Turkey's Northern city of Samsun have stepped up a two-year campaign against a Protestant church, denouncing in the media the legally registered congregation's right to exist. Izzet Altunbas, chairman of the Samsun Association of Balkan Turks, and a prominent member of the local Nationalist Movement Party, publicly attacked the Agape Protestant Church in vicious terms in mid-June. In speeches broadcast over three local TV channels on June 16th, Altunbas declared that establishment of the church, officially registered as the Agape Church Association, revealed "extensive damage" to the nation in that it reflected Turkey's compliance with European Union legal norms strengthening a dangerous "assimilation" drive against both Turkish ethnicity and Islam. "I find this association and its secret activities a huge danger for Samsun and for Islam," Altunbas said. "This is treason against our Muslim and Turkish identity."

I agree with the nationalists on one point: as long as this kind of crap continues, Turkey does not belong in the EU. (And, as a side note, they need to get out of Cyprus before they are allowed into Europe.)